Salt in the Neolithic of Central Europe: Production and Distribution
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Salz und Gold: die Rolle des Salzes im prähistorischen Europa Salt and Gold: The Role of Salt in Prehistoric Europe 1 Salz und Gold: die Rolle des Salzes im prähistorischen Europa Akten der internationaler Fachtagung (Humboldt-Kolleg) in Provadia, Bulgarien 30 September – 4 October 2010 Herausgegeben von Vassil Nikolov und Krum Bacvarov Provadia • Veliko Tarnovo 2012 2 Salt and Gold: The Role of Salt in Prehistoric Europe Proceedings of the International Symposium (Humboldt-Kolleg) in Provadia, Bulgaria 30 September – 4 October 2010 Edited by Vassil Nikolov and Krum Bacvarov Provadia • Veliko Tarnovo 2012 3 Gedruckt mit Unterstützung der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung Bonn, Deutschland Printed with the support of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Bonn, Germany Sprachredaktion: Krum Bacvarov (Englisch), Tabea Malter (Deutsch), Gassia Artin (Französisch) Grafikdesign: Elka Anastasova © Vassil Nikolov, Krum Bacvarov (Hrsg.) © Verlag Faber, Veliko Tarnovo ISBN 978-954-400-695-2 4 Inhalt / Contens List of Contributors ................................................................................................................................ 7 Vorwort der Herausgeber / Editorial ..................................................................................................... 9 Vassil Nikolov Salt, early complex society, urbanization: Provadia-Solnitsata (5500-4200 BC) ................................. 11 Olivier Weller La production chalcolithique du sel à Provadia-Solnitsata : de la technologie céramique aux implications socio-économiques ...................................................... 67 Hristo Etropolski Technology of salt extraction by means of a Late Neolithic furnace from Provadia-Solnitsata .......... 89 Margarita Lyuncheva Tell Provadia-Solnitsata: The late Neolithic Karanovo III-IV period in the West Black Sea Coast context ..................................................................................................... 93 Viktoria Petrova Tell Provadia-Solnitsata: the Middle Chalcolithic layer in the context of the cultural development of the Western Black Sea area ......................................... 103 Petar Leshtakov The late Chalcolithic at Provadia-Solnitsata in the context of the West Black Sea Coast .................. 109 Krum Bacvarov Saltmaking and boundaries: Within and Without at Provadia-Solnitsata ........................................... 119 Desislava Takorova Long distance contacts in later prehistory: ecological, economical and social implications .............. 123 Dan Monah L’approvisionnement en sel des tribus chalcolithiques sédentaires et des tribus des steppes du Nord de la Mer Noire ............................................................................. 127 Ion Sandu, Olivier Weller, Marius Alexianu Analyses archéométriques sur les moules à sel chalcolithiques de l’est de la Roumanie .................. 143 Marius Alexianu, Olivier Weller, Robin Brigand, Roxana-Gabriela Curca Ethnoarchäologische Forschungen zu den Salzwasserquellen der moldauischen Vorkarpaten, Rumänien ......................................................................................... 155 Valeriu Cavruc, Antony Harding Prehistoric production and exchange of salt in the Carpathian-Danube Region ................................ 173 5 Cristian Schuster, Ionut Tutulescu Zum Salz im Nordosten Olteniens (Rumänien) in der Vorgeschichte bis ins Mittelalter. Eine Einführung .................................................................. 201 Nenad Tasic New evidence on salt use in the Neolithic of Southeast Europe ......................................................... 213 Slavisa Peric Die neolithischen Siedlungen in der mittleren Morava-Ebene und die Slatina-Toponymie ............... 219 Thomas Saile Salt in the Neolithic of Central Europe: production and distribution ................................................. 225 Albrecht Jockenhövel Bronzezeitliche Sole in Mitteldeutschland: Gewinnung - Distribution - Symbolik ........................... 239 Thomas Stöllner Prähistorischer Steinsalzbergbau - wirtschaftsarchäologische Betrachtung und neue Daten ............. 259 Martin Hees Die Bedeutung der vorgeschichtlichen Salzgewinnung in Südwestdeutschland ................................ 277 Peter Attema, Luca Alessandri Salt production on the Tyrrhenian coast in South Lazio (Italy) during the Late Bronze Age: its significance for understanding contemporary society ..................... 287 Elisa Guerra-Doce, F. Javier Abarquero-Moras, Germán Delibes-de Castro, Jesús del Val-Recio, Ángel L. Palomino-Lázaro Salt production at the Villafáfila Lake Complex (Zamora, Spain) in prehistoric times ...................... 300 Isabella Tsigarida Bereiche der zentralen Einflussnahme auf Salz im Römischen Reich am Beispiel der Provinz Dakien ....................................................................... 313 Valeri Yotov Bulgarian control over the Salt Road in Transylvania during the 9th century: The archaeological evidence ............................................................................................................... 323 Evgeny Golovinsky Das Kochsalz - Urgeschichte und Gegenwart einer bedeutenden Substanz ....................................... 333 Mariana Mitewa, Christo Kolev Sodium Chloride: food and poison ..................................................................................................... 341 Petia Penkova Salt as a medicine for gold .................................................................................................................. 345 Anna Coleva-Dimitrova Das Salz in der bulgarischen Mikrotoponymie ................................................................................... 349 6 V. Nikolov & K. Bacvarov (eds). Salz und Gold: die Rolle des Salzes im prähistorischen Europa / Salt and Gold: The Role of Salt in Prehistoric Europe. Provadia & Veliko Tarnovo, 2012, 225-238. Salt in the Neolithic of Central Europe: production and distribution Thomas Saile Die Bekanntschaft mit dem Salz war der erste Schritt zu einer höheren Kultur. [The acquaintance with salt was the first step to a higher culture.] (H. Freydank 1929, 145) Die Geschichte des Salzes ist die Geschichte des Ganges der Civilisation überhaupt. [The history of salt is the history of the progress of civilization.] (V. Hehn 1873, 73) The common and daily presence of salt in our lives today has lessened our awareness of how valuable salt is. Things were different but a couple of centuries ago, when the possession of salterns was of tremendous importance to the mercantile economy of absolutist regimes. Wars were fought over salt; in 1611, for instance, a protracted conflict between the dukes of Bavaria and the archbishops of Salzburg over the right to exploit the saltworks at Berchtesgaden ended with the overthrow of Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau (1559-1617). Up to the middle of the 19th century, indeed, the economic importance of salt was comparable to that of crude oil in our present-day economy. Salt occurs naturally as rock-salt or in dissolved form as brine. According to legends, the discovery of saline springs frequently resulted from the intense observation of nature, as humans took note of places where animals went to lick salt, and became sensitive to the particular characteristics of the plant cover in the vicinity of salt springs. Two entirely different strategies were applied as salt winning techniques: evaporation of brine and mining of rock-salt. Producing salt from brine involves several steps: obtaining and preparing brine, cleaning and condensing it, refining and boiling it until the salt crystallizes, and finally preparing the salt for transportation. This article is concerned with the earliest stages in the development of such techniques in Central Europe during the Neolithic. The relevant archaeological evidence will be presented below in a chronological order, followed by some remarks on Neolithic salt trade. In general, the dating of prehistoric artifacts and structures connected to the exploitation, trade, and consumption of salt presents considerable difficulties, as chronologically sensitive material is rarely uncovered in close association with salt exploitation-related features. As we shall see below, the frequent appearance of rich archaeological finds in the surroundings of medieval and post-medieval saltworks cannot be considered as evidence of a corresponding prehistoric exploitation of salt; in practice, such correlations are often deceptive. Neither can isolated finds of salt-producing ceramics (briquetage) in settlements or graves serve as a clear-cut indication of salt production; these are evidence, at best, of salt trade. In Central European inland areas, the most common procedure of salt winning documented during the Neolithic is brine evaporation by means of briquetage. The forms of briquetage, generally divided into supporting elements (stands) and vessels, show great regional and chronological variation (fig. 1). Briquetage is mainly a coarsely tempered and thick-walled kind of ceramics that was fired 225 Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the development of briquetage forms in Central Europe. EN = Early Neolithic, MN = Middle Neolithic, LN = Late Neolithic, FN = Final Neolithic, EBA = Early Bronze Age, TBA = Tumulus Bronze Age, UC = Urnfield Culture, HA = Hallstatt, LT = La Tène, RIA = Roman Iron Age at low temperatures. Frequently the surface is reddish and treated carelessly. Such production-related ceramics are predominantly